


open windows

by Anonymous



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Get Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, joe's boyfriend hits him and he immediately drops him and goes to nicky's house to stay, read opening notes for more details but basically, which is where our story takes place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “It’s fine,” Joe says before Nicky can say anything, but he tilts his head obligingly when Nicky reaches out to grasp at his face. “It doesn’t even really hurt.”The bruise is red at the edges, still darkening: it’ll hurt a lot more in the morning, Nicky knows.“I’m going to kill him,” he says.Joe sighs. “Can I at least come in and unpack my stuff first?”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 126
Collections: All and More (18+) Kaysanova Gift Bag 2020, Anonymous





	open windows

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [SolanumCrispumGlasnevin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolanumCrispumGlasnevin/pseuds/SolanumCrispumGlasnevin) in the [All_and_More_Gift_Bag_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/All_and_More_Gift_Bag_2020) collection. 



> for the short prompt: bruises.
> 
> BIG WARNING: there is VERY RECENT past abuse in this fic! essentially, joe is coming straight to nicky's flat after joe's boyfriend hit him. it is a one-time thing and joe has thrown him out/is getting a restraining order and the abuser does not feature in the fic at all, but please proceed with caution if this sort of topic can be triggering to you!

Later, Nicky will look back and wonder if he hadn’t known all along.

He’d like to think he didn’t — what kind of friend, after all, knows something like that might happen and does nothing to prevent it? But the signs were all there: Joe was touchier about this boyfriend that others he’d had in the past, more reluctant to talk about him around Nicky or bring him to Thursday night drinks. At the beginning, he had had been deeply and obviously in love — gushing about his new lover at every moment, his cheeks flushed and smile wide, so happy it almost hurt Nicky to see. But as the months passed, Joe grew quieter and quieter and the references to his boyfriend were fewer and farther between. When Joe did mention him, it was usually to complain about how he’d said art wasn’t a valid career choice or that Joe spent too much time with his friends. “Can you believe that?” Joe had complained last weekend over Bloody Marys. “I see you guys like twice a week!”

If Nicky had thought about it, he would have recognized the signs. Of course he would have: how could he have missed them? But he didn't think about it, because he never liked to think about Joe and his boyfriends, because he never knew what was him being careful and what was him being jealous and he didn't want to drive them away. Still, he must have known it was a possibility this time - he _must_ have - because when Joe shows up at his front door with a suitcase and a black eye, Nicky doesn't feel any surprise: only a sick, sinking realization, followed by a furious anger.

“It’s fine,” Joe says before Nicky can say anything, but he tilts his head obligingly when Nicky reaches out to grasp at his face. “It doesn’t even really hurt.”

The bruise is red at the edges, still darkening: it’ll hurt a lot more in the morning, Nicky knows.

“I’m going to kill him,” he says.

Joe sighs. “Can I at least come in and unpack my stuff first?”

Woodenly, Nicky steps aside. He should take Joe’s suitcase for him, lock the door behind him, but he doesn’t; he can’t think of anything beyond what Joe’s boyfriend would look like with his face caved in. “It’s just for a few days,” Joe says when Nicky doesn’t say anything. “If it’s longer than that, I can go stay with Booker.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nicky says, finding his voice. “You’re not going to stay with Booker.”

“It’s just a few days,” Joe says again. He’s not looking at Nicky. Instead, he stands with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, like he’s not sure what to do. Usually, he doesn’t hesitate to make himself at home in Nicky’s apartment. But today he looks so small, standing in Nicky’s living room, his black eyed gleaming unpleasantly in the light. For the first time, Nicky understands why they’re called shiners.

“Joe,” Nicky says, “Can I hug you?”

“It’s just until I get the restraining order figured out,” Joe continues as if Nicky hadn’t spoken. “I already kicked him out.”

“Joe,” Nicky says.

“I’m only here because — I already threw him out, I just figured it would be smartest, if I wasn’t there when he came back. And I took all my valuables. And it should only take a couple of days to get a restraining order filed, so it’s really just me being paranoid, it doesn’t have to -“

“Please,” Nicky cuts in.

Joe’s gaze flicks over Nicky’s face. His shoulders are tense, jaw clenched. Eventually, he gives a tiny little nod, and in one swift movement, Nicky has Joe in his arms, squeezing him so tightly that Joe’s leather jacket squeaks under his fingers.

For a moment, Joe is stiff. Then all at once, like a key unlocking, he relaxes in Nicky’s arms, molding himself to Nicky’s body. His chin hooks over Nicky’s shoulder; his hands come up to clench in the back of Nicky’s shirt.

“You can stay here as long as long as you need to,” Nicky says. “As long as you want to. Move in, if you feel like it. I’m not doing anything with the spare room anyway.”

Joe huffs a laugh and pulls back. His eyes look faintly wet. “I can’t stay in your spare room forever,” he says. “This isn’t college.”

No, it isn’t college. College: the greatest four years of Nicky’s life, which he didn’t fully appreciate at the time. Not the classes, or the being broke, neither of which Nicky particularly misses, but getting to be around Joe all the time, see him every morning and every night. They’d been sorted together by random roommate assignments freshman year and roomed together every year thereafter, finally getting their own little apartment senior year, which stank and had cockroaches but which was miraculously free of Booker’s empty beer cans and Quynh parading around in her panties at every available opportunity. It was fantastic. It was the greatest year of Nicolo’s life, and part of him, he thinks, will always long for that time, no matter how his life changes.

“Have you eaten?” Nicky asks now. He forces himself to let go of Joe and step back. “It’s late, you must be hungry.”

“I’m fine.”

“I was just going to order dinner,” Nicky says. “Let me do that and you can go start unpacking. What do you want? Chinese? Indian? Pizza?”

“Whatever,” Joe says, so Nicky busts out the menu for China Kitchen and orders far too many dishes for just the two of them. Whatever: leftovers are good. All Nicky has in his fridge right now is a bowl of cold pasta salad and a bottle of mustard, and though Nicky doesn’t mind not having breakfast, Joe needs to eat in the mornings or he gets grumpy.

Afterwards, Nicky goes to the linen closet and searches for fresh sheets to fit the guest bed. He can’t find them with the towels, so he ends up having to go searching under his bed, where he keeps the odds and ends he can’t fit anywhere else. The whole time, he tries to think of anything other than the sad twist to Joe’s mouth when Nicky had opened the door on him, the way he had been so hesitant under Nicky’s touch. Like he was afraid.

Joe, the kindest, warmest man in the world, reduced to this? Nicky didn’t care what Joe says: he _is_ going to kill that man.

Probably with Andy and Quynh’s help, too.

Nicky finally finds the sheets and forces himself to put the thought away for the time being. Joe is in the guest room, his suitcase spread out on the bed, taking out messy piles of clothes and folding them before tucking them away in the dresser. He’s already pulled out most of the valuables he packed — Nicky spots his jewelry box on the dresser table, a framed photo of Joe’s sisters on a vacation in Morocco, a stack of official paperwork including his passport, and —

“I didn’t know you still had that,” Nicky says. Joe glances up, following Nicky’s gaze to the hobbled, knotty vase carefully laid across the pillow; his expression twists into something almost sheepish.

“Ah, yes, well. You made it for me, didn’t you? Booker made it sound like you put a lot of effort into it.”

Joe laughs like it’s a joke, but it’s true: Nicky did make it for Joe, and he did put a lot of effort into it, which was why it was so frustrating when it turned out looking more like a demented carrot than a vase that one could put flowers in. He’d been ready to throw it out entirely when Booker had convinced him to paint it — “For practice’s sake,” he’d insisted — and then, as soon as it was finished, had stolen it and hustled it away to give to Joe in Nicky’s stead. It had sat in the middle of their kitchen table for two years in college: “Proof that Nicky took at least one art class here,” Joe had said proudly; “Proof that I can’t sculpt for shit,” Nicky countered, but he’d never tried that hard to get rid of it.

He had assumed, when he and Joe parted ways, that Joe had thrown it out. Why would he keep it, after all? Yes, perhaps it had initially been intended as a declaration of Nicky’s affections, but that moment was long-passed and any sentiment the vase had once held had been blunted. Now, it was just ugly.

For him, at least. For Joe, apparently it was not so.

“Why did you bring it?”

Joe shrugs, his shoulders tense. “I thought he might break it if he came back.”

“Do you think he’ll try to break your things?” Nicky asks, alarmed. “Joe, we should - I can call Andy, we should go over tonight and get the rest of your stuff if you think he’s going to try to wreck it, it’s not worth risking —“

But Joe is shaking his head. “No, I really don’t — I think most of it it’ll be fine. He’ll probably come back crying for forgiveness, anyway, and he’s not going to get that if all my stuff is smashed.” He sees the look on Nicky’s face and amends, “He’s not going to get that at all. But this is — this is what we were fighting about, when he —“ Joe breaks off, swallowing. “He wanted me to get rid of it, I said no. I don’t want him to take it into his own hands, if he manages to get back into the apartment.”

“Well, it is pretty ugly,” Nicky says after a moment, because Joe has gone quiet and upset again, and Nicky hates it

But when Joe snorts, the sound is utterly humorless. “Come on, Nicky. That’s not why he hated it.”

Nicky blinks at him.

Joe sees his expression and sighs. “He hated it because you made it,” he says, “And even though I never said it, he knows I kept it because I love you."

Nicky’s heart is thrumming too-fast in his chest, like a bird trying to escape the grasp of two gentle hands. Nicky laughs weakly. “Well, of course you love me,” he says. “We’re best friends. I love you, too.”

Joe’s eyes slip shut. “Not like that.”

The room suddenly feels very quiet. The vase’s orange and red paint job — “Joe likes orange,” Nicky had said, before proceeding to dump half a gallon of paint on his knobby vase — seems garish against the white sheets. “I don’t understand,” Nicky says, but he does. The very part of him which is sure he is misunderstanding, which is grasping for some alternative interpretation that will make Joe’s words makes sense, knows exactly what Joe is saying and what it means.

 _Six years,_ Nicky thinks, and has half a mind to grasp for the doorframe to keep himself upright. _How much time have we wasted?_

He’s trying to figure out what the fuck to say next when the doorbell rings.

Joe turns. “That’ll be the food,” he says hoarsely, but all Nicky can pay attention to is the fact that his eyes are red. When Joe tries to brush by Nicky, Nicky grabs his wrist.

“Joe,” he says, and, when Joe won’t turn to look at him, “Yusuf, _please._ ”

Joe turns. “What?” he asks tiredly.

The words get stuck in Nicky’s throat. Joe waits, but Nicky doesn’t say anything. “It’s fine,” Joe says, slipping his wrist out of Nicky’s hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

Nicky watches as Joe goes to the front door and accepts the food. The delivery boy is young, maybe sixteen; he whistles when he sees Joe’s face. “Who’d you get in fight with?” he asks, and Joe cracks “You should see the other guy,” and it makes the delivery boy laugh even as it twists Nicky’s heart. The _other guy_ probably looks fine. Joe probably didn’t even touch him; wouldn’t want to hit his partner, even if he’d been hit first.

Nicky waits until the door is shut to say, “I’ve been in love with you for years.”

Joe stops. He’s facing away from Nicky, still towards the door, the plastic bag of Chinese food in one hand. It has a yellow smiley face on the side: _Come again soon!_ “You don’t have to do this,” Joe says. “I told you it was fine.”

“Don’t have to do what? Be honest with you? I think I owe it to you, after all these years.” Nicky takes a deep breath. “I’ve been in love with you since the beginning. Since — since the first time I heard you laugh, probably. It’s hard to say for sure.”

There are tears on Joe’s face when he turns. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why would I? Someone like you — so kind, so beautiful — I thought I was lucky just to be your friend.” Nicky takes one step forward, then another, and, when Joe doesn’t flinch away, crosses the space between them to take the bag from Joe’s hands and set it down. He takes Joe’s hands in his own. “Why didn’t _you_ say anything?”

Joe looks at him wonderingly. “I thought it was obvious. I — the others were always making jokes about it. But you never seemed interested.”

“I made you a vase,” Nicky says.

And finally, finally, a real smile breaks across Joe’s lips, as buttery and soft as the sunshine on a warm summer morning. “Yes,” Joe agrees, “You made me a vase.”

And he kisses him.

Nicolo always used to imagine, if he ever kissed Joe it would be in some explosion of passion: hot, fast, the world erupting in fireworks around them. In reality, the kiss is slow and rather chaste. Joe’s lips are chapped like he’s forgotten his Carmex; his palm is clammy against Nicky’s neck. And the world does not dissolve into fireworks at all. Nicky can feel every beat of Joe’s heart beneath his fingers, is painfully aware of every brush of Joe’s jeans against his own. Nicky is not transported into some fantasy world, because he is here: he is already here.

Then Joe hisses and pulls back.

“Sorry,” Joe says, when he sees Nicky’s expression. “It’s just -“ He raises a hand to his bruise, but doesn’t touch it. “I think your nose got me.”

It’s not funny. It really isn’t. Joe is bruised because some — some _oaf_ of a man thought he could touch Joe, though he could betray the trust that Joe put in him, and Nicky should still be furious about that, _is_ still furious about that; he should offer to get Joe some ice to put on his eye, or a raw steak — isn’t that supposed to help? Raw steak?

But all Nicky can think of now is the image of his great, giant nose poking Joe in the eye, and he can’t help it: he bursts out laughing.

After a moment, Joe joins him. “It’s not funny,” he says, but he’s giggling. “It’s not — come on —“

“I always knew this nose would get me in trouble,” Nicky manages to gasp out, and Joe says, “Hey, no disparaging this nose, I love this nose,” and Nicky says, “ _Really?_ ” and Joe says, “I mean it!“ and Nicky challenges, “What are you going to do to stop me, hmm?” and Joe says, “One more word and I’ll go stay with Booker instead!” And the apartment is silent for a moment before they both burst into laughter again.

“The food’s getting cold,” Joe says eventually, once their giggles have tapered down.

“I have a microwave,” Nicky says, but Joe waves a hand.

“Microwaved chicken? Don’t make me gag.”

So they separate long enough to pick up their dinner — indeed lukewarm — and go into the kitchen, where they pass amicably side-by-side pulling out chopsticks, napkins, bottles of soy sauce and vinegar. They eat on the couch with the Netflix selection screen pulled up in front of them, because neither can decide what they’d like to watch — maybe because neither of them really want to watch anything. Joe steals one of Nicky’s potstickers and periodic bites of his sweet and sour chicken; Nicky manages to swipe Joe’s egg roll and eat half of it before Joe spots him. It’s like college all over again.

But eventually the food is gone and Joe starts to yawn and Nicky stands up and declares bedtime. “I want to take this slow,” Nicky says, when the two find themselves hovering in the hallway in front of Nicky’s spare room. “I don’t — you just broke up with — and I want to do this right.”

Joe nods; and nods again; and then blurts, “But do you think you could sleep in my room tonight?” Then flushing, he clarifies, “I just mean — no sex. But — you know I hate sleeping alone.”

Nicky’s heart clenches in his chest. “Of course,” he manages after a moment. “How about my room? The mattress is better.”

So that’s how night finds them: curled together under the plaid flannel of Nicky’s sheets, two soft bodies in the blue darkness. Joe rests his palm over Nicky’s heart. “This isn’t how I saw today going,” Nicky admits.

Joe snorts, nosing the back of Nicky’s neck. “Me either.”

“But I’m glad it did.”

This time, a kiss to Nicky’s nape. “Me too.”

Nicky raises a hand to lay over Joe’s; his thumb traces the foreign ridges of Joe’s palm, his artist’s calluses. One day, these ridges will be as familiar to Nicky as the constellation of freckles across Joe’s nose. The thought sends something warm and pink twisting through his chest, something like nostalgia, but better.

“I think we’re going to need to frame that vase,” Nicky says, when he can speak around the lump in his throat. He falls asleep to the rumble of Joe’s laugh.

-

They do frame the vase. It becomes a central fixture of their apartment, right above their mantle, removed only once: when it sits at the center of the high table at their wedding.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'my heart is full of open windows' by azure t.


End file.
